How far we haven’t come

I found this video clip on Too Sense.

This clip broke my heart. It was supposed to be better for these young people, but here they are, having the same issues of self-identity and self-love that existed when I was a child, back in the ’60s.

The doll experiment is a clear indication of our failure as a society to adequately deal with issues of race. 50 years after Brown vs Board of Education, and the results are still the same. When will it ever change?

Women as Victims

Okay, now that Edwards is out I’m really going to step in it.

If, like me, you read blogs by Women of Color (most notably BlackAmazon), you’re familiar with the never-ending tension between White feminists and WoC.

Basically, it goes like this: White feminist says something dismissive about our issues, tells us to wait our turn, or says something that perpetuates a stereotype. Feminist of Color calls her out on it. White feminist cries “I’m not a racist! You’re being mean to me!”

By so doing, the White feminist puts herself in the position of Victim, and there is much rallying to support the poor flower of womanhood and much chastisement of the mean old Feminist of Color.

Seems to me, you can’t have it both ways. Playing the victim is pandering to patriarchy, where (white) women are fragile and need protection. Not the best path to empowerment, in my opinion. Yet it happens over and over. To me it looks like using privilege to advance.

Watch for this to happen, now that the Democratic primary is between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary already capitalized on this when she cried, before the New Hampshire primary. Oh, wait, it’s already begun.

Obama has to be really, really careful. We know what happens to Black men who hurt White women.